A good night's sleep saw us up and on our way to the home affairs office by 8am, or at least we would have been if there had been any taxis! Returning to the hostel where they ordered us a private cab, we sat down to wait, fully expecting it to be the 30 minutes or longer that they had quoted. For once Africa time wasn't working against us and about 10 minutes later the taxi arrived.
For large parts of the sea front, Durban looks like a thoroughly modern city. When it comes to the Home Affairs office though, it looks like anything but. Arriving in the visa office we sat down for what looked like a lengthy wait. There appeared to be at least two queues, neither of which were going anywhere fast. A constant stream of impatient people pushing their way through into the offices wasn't assisting the situation either. Fortunately we appeared to have selected the correct queue and slowly but surely we edged forward.
About two hours after we arrived, it was our turn and despite our fears the whole process went very easily. We may have had to leave and get a photocopy of our passports (something that you would have thought they might have mentioned on the application form) and queue once again in another department to pay the fee; but we were soon leaving with a letter that said we had applied. Note, I said a letter, not the actual visa. Apparently we will be notified by sms text when the visa is ready and as I have previously mentioned, will have to return to Durban to get it. We are obviously planning on ignoring any texts, or at the very least hoping that our visa application is not processed very rapidly. To make matters a little more awkward, if the visa doesn't come though on time we are still supposed to return to the office in Durban to get a letter saying that we have paid and can leave the country! Once again we have no choice but to plead ignorance.
All in all getting back to the hostel by about 10:30am was a bit of a pleasant surprise. After a quick dropping off of gear, we wandered down to uShaka Marine World to have a day of aquatic-based fun. The dolphin show, aquarium (built in and around a ship) and later seal pantomime were all very enjoyable. Had the weather been better, we would probably have made the most of the water park as well. As it was, having walked round for a few hours we left and headed to a mall to get some shopping.
By the time we had walked all the way to the mall and back again in a howling gale, all we really wanted to do was rest. Instead we headed back to the shops to get our coach tickets so that we could visit Debs' friend (Steph's daughter) Georgie for Christmas. We received the invite while we were at Steph and Tim's and had been trying to work out whether we could get there in time. Eventually we conceded that we could, assuming we didn't want to see anything along the way, and so set about hatching another plan. Now we are going to get about halfway there, leave our gear safely stashed and travel the rest of the way by coach. We will then return before new year and carry on down the coast at a more leisurely pace.
With all our chores completed it was back to the hostel where we have remained. Instead of another day in Durban, we are going to get moving tomorrow. The bicycles and the open road are beckoning, hopefully the wind will be kind to us tomorrow.
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